SEATTLE — Members of a Seattle church are pleading for the city to stop demolition on a church that's been around for more than a century.
Members spoke out on Sunday.
The pastor is also speaking out against older buildings being torn down for redevelopment.
“Who would ever think they would tear down this building," said a teary-eyed Mitzi Hayden.
Sitting inside the former Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, Hayden can't bear to think about losing her place of solace of more than five decades.
“It's just too emotional to talk about," she said.
She knows just about everything about the 110-year-old building.
"The altar was hand carved by a member," she said.
She’s held funerals for several family members here.
Her daughter also got married here in 2005.
"It was a big wedding. A Filipino wedding," she said, looking at wedding pictures.
But now, members attending worship in Amharic and their pastor are trying to cope with having to move out by the end of the month.
Mekane Yesus Evangelical Lutheran holds service in the same building.
"It's my first time to see in my entire life that a house of God was sold and broken," said Pastor Berhanu Seyoum.
The building’s location along Aurora Avenue, overlooking Green Lake, was prime real-estate.
Lamb of God, which owns the church after they merged, says maintaining the building became too costly.
Pastor Brad Malone told KIRO 7 they allowed Mekane Yesus to use the facility at no cost.
Lamb of God decided to sell the building to a Chinese Firm for more than $1 million.
Malone believes it will be developed, possibly into townhomes.
The fate of the building is not sitting well with members like Lucias Dafi Abdalla.
She and her husband, Daniel, are longtime members and would like their baby girl to be baptized and grow up at their church.
“You can’t take this house down. This is everything we got,” said Abdalla.
As new development inches closer around them and an end is all but certain, Pastor Seyoum has a message for the city of Seattle.
"I think there is more to buildings in a city than just the money that's attached to it, and I hope people see beyond that," he said.
The pastor at Lamb of God in Lake City said the money from the sale will go toward expanding its church.
They are also offering help to relocate the Ethiopian church.
Hayden believes the church should be considered a landmark and spared demolition.
“I just always was hoping that this would be where I would worship and my grandkids would worship and that’s not going to happen now,” she said.
For now, Mekane Yesus Evangelical Lutheran will continue to hold Sunday service until the end of October.
The new owners will take over in November.